The Irish standard., 1887-07-09

may we'll be, gazing on that marvellous
painting. [ have looked on it for now
nearly 90 years. ali who were my
early contemporaries are dead, nearly
all OF their chiIdren not a few OF their
grand children. And as | look upon
! that heavenly face, in which no feature
| or tint has change in ali these years.
it seems to me it is the reality and we
alone are the shadows."I
al else has crnmbled into dust, but
this forgotten sentinel Of lost Beliopo~
lis. keeps day and night his solitary
ward, and in all human probability will
lift his towering head TO tha sky, as
much unchanged ten thousand years
hence. standing guard over the tomb OF
the City of the Sun.
[ was on my way back when I. modest,
signb board, attached 60 q garden gate
on the eastern side of the road. few
hundred yards nearer Cairo, called Lay
attention to 81 more interesting relic.
Within fifty PAGES Of The road side, in a
we'll cultivated garden, stands q gnar!ed
md riven sycamore tree, whose
branches and trunk are covered With
the initials OF visitors cut into the soft
bark; unlike our sycamore, which is q
tree Of Ma jestic growth. whose branches
almost rival those Of the elm in grace,
this is as low and gnarled and knotted
as some dwarf oak, whose spread and
stretch the Alpine storms had stunted,
Around its short and stout trunk a
plain wooden fence has heen construct
ed to prevent further depredayions. aud
the tree will stand until the inevitable
law doonls il to fall.
The present tree is only about two
and half centuries old; but it was
planted OH the site of predecessor.
and tradition saws from spIig OF shat
predecessor, which had occupied the
same spot FROM the dawn Of our era
Certain it is shat wyaea the Mahonledans
conquered Egypt, twelve and q half
centuries ago, it was there, and the
Egyptians Of that day, who were fer the
most part Coptic Christian, had the leg
end preserved in their Oldest traditions
and perpetuated by paintings and by
many legends. that under this tree the
Holy Family rested at last, when they
fed from the Herodian massacre into
Egypt. Within dozen steps Of the tree
lisa wel|whose water zrjgates the garden
and another legend tells tbat this was
miraculously opened by an angel TO
quench the thirst OF the fIo]y Fugltiyas.
Certain it is that it is Che only we'll in
Egypt. SO far as I have seen or heard,
whose water comes from q source in
dependent Of the Nile. Everywhere
else, without one exception, the percep-
tibie taste OF ,nagnesia demonstrates
that the we'll water is SIMPLY derived
from the percoiatiun Of tie Nile through
the sandy soil Of Egypt's deserts. Here
alone the water is clear, sparkling and
as pure as any mountain spring. With
in less than hundred yards is another
we'll, whose water I tasted at the same
time, but no one could avoid observing
the difference; the latter was the water
you dnd in any Egyntian we'll except
that which the oldest Egyptian legend
Of the Christian era called "Mary's
Well" [ could not envy the heart Of
him who. unmove1, would tread this
spot. where, now DaarIy nineteen hun
dIed years ago, tbs weary pilgrims
from far off Bethlehem, with their
~ Sacred Charge - found their first stage
OF rest in that way Of thorn5" which
ended at Calvary.
The late Khediye presented this tree
to the Empress, and she in turn to the
Jesuit Fathers. Perhaps. in all it's Ca
reer. it witnessed no changes more
marked than seventeen Years have
wrought ia the lives of the royal giyer
and receiver. Both have lost their
thrones; both are exiled from their
country; the first bora of one met his
death at savage hands in the far off
possession Of stranger. The first
born Of the other sits on the throne
from which his father was driven: and
for both the future has no copapensa-
tiora